ORLANDO, Fla. -- Tegic Communications, a Seattle-based division of AOL, has been quietly talking about a portable media that it expects to launch this summer.
It's made the rounds to all the conventions -- to CES, 3GSM and now CTIA.

The player uses the Linux operating system, but incorporates software built by Kirkland-based Wildseed, which AOL bought a couple of years ago.

From what I understand, the device will be less restricted than most music players today. Its underlying software, called Smartscreens, allows users to stream or download music or videos to the device over a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. The device can also be connected to a computer by a cable, which is the standard today.

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The Tegic media player was on display at Haier's booth. Haier is manufacturing the product, due out this summer.

Tegic expects to launch the 30-gigabyte music player with hardware maker Haier by July, but has not yet disclosed the name or the price, or which music service it will use.

I snapped a quick photo of the player at the Haier booth yesterday, and thought it was worth sharing. Nothing fancy really, especially for all the stuff loaded inside -- even a full Web browser.